At the beginning of the spring anime season, I pinpointed nine anime showing for that season that looked particularly interesting to me. Now the season have ended and I thought it would be good to follow-up and report on whether those anime ended up being any good (in my opinion). I watched the majority of these anime in full, but there were two I dropped after the first 3-4 episodes due to not clicking with them. For those anime, I can only give my impression of the initial episodes and explain why I wasn’t motivated to continue- you should not take it as a reflection on the entire anime.
So without further ado, let’s discuss nine anime from this season and see whether I think they’re worth watching. Feel free to chime in with your own opinions on these anime or talk about anime I didn’t manage to watch from this season.
My Hero Academia (13 Episodes, Second Season Confirmed)
My Hero Academia was exactly what I expected it to be: a very solid shonen anime with very nice production values. The story of a young boy attending a school that trains superheroes was animated by Studio Bones. They generally do great work so it’s a given the anime looked pretty. The story itself made absolutely sure you knew it was a shonen with all the expected tropes- the protagonist has a hotheaded rival who is effortlessly good at everything, there’s training montages, complicated fight scenes, the mentor character, the whole shebang.
But the story delivers on the tropes in a likeable, charming way and features a good mix of characters. The lead is actually pretty adorable and I liked that he was genuinely sensitive and prone to tears, that differentiated him a bit from other shonen protagonists. While following the shonen framework, the story has a lot of shout-outs to American superheroes. The “greatest hero” character of All Might could have stepped out from a Silver Age comic book, except for the part where he swears (in English) a lot.
The series has some of the more annoying shonen tropes as well- like the pervert character who spends the majority of the time ~hilariously~ sexually harassing girls. But overall, though, it’s a really fun series to watch. If you like superheroes or if you like shonen anime like Naruto or Hunter x Hunter, you should give this a shot
The Ace Attorney Anime (Ongoing)
This is the animated adaptation of the popular video game franchise about a rookie defense attorney…and it had surprisingly low production values. The animation was pretty low quality- characters are often off-model. It at least isn’t inexpressive though. As for the story part of the anime, I’d say it did okay.
Though it was mostly faithful, sometimes it changed or condensed the game’s story in awkward ways- the changes made to the climatic last case were particularly nonsensical and the characters and pacing suffered for it. However, it did add some genuinely good original material and character moments as well-there was an entire episode that filled in the character’s childhood backstory I really enjoyed (and that the game creator may have had a hand in).
So I felt the anime, while very flawed, managed to make some good additions to the canon and I will continue watching it. However, I definitely don’t recommend it as an introduction to the series- you should play the games, they’re better, more consistent and more detailed. Also be aware the anime has some ishy elements like the games, like underage character fanservice and so on.
Rin-ne Season 2 (Ongoing)
Rin-ne is the adaptation of the latest manga by Inuyasha and Ranma ½ author Rumiko Takahashi. The story follows a perpetually poor Shinigami (grim reaper, basically) named Rinne. The second season of the show is pretty much like the first- a straightforward enjoyable-but-not-sidesplitting comedy that will remind you a lot of Takahashi’s other work. Many of the characters are familiar archetypes, though unusually for Takahashi the lead male and female characters/couple aren’t at all belligerent or aggressive toward each other (or anyone else). It’s basically a relaxing watch, especially if you’re nostalgic for that older anime.
Mayoiga/The Lost Village (12 Episodes)
The Lost Village proved one thing to me- if you’re going to do a story focused on psychological trauma, it’s important to have the teensiest grasp on subtlety and complexity. Just a little tiny bit is all I ask. This anime had no clue what subtlety and complexity meant. I binge-watched this because I was fascinated in a way similar to someone who was unable to tear their eyes away from a horrible car accident. This story about a group of people going to a village not on any maps almost goes into so-bad-it’s-good territory.
The characters are so melodramatic and nonsensical in their reactions to everything it’s almost hilarious- one second they want to murder one person for no real reason, then the next it’s another person. A dude at one point tries to kill the entire bus of people and it’s shrugged off like nothing happened. One girl is routinely talking about killing people and actually tries to kill someone, yet no one treats her like a threat, instead insisting the quiet mousy girl is the devil. I think the series was trying to explore mob mentality or something, but its lack of subtlety killed it.And pretty much all of the characters were unlikeable as a result.
Lack of subtlety also killed the attempted exploration of people’s psychology and fears- the character backstories were rendered in a ridiculously melodramatic manner. There were so many characters that we didn’t even learn anything about most of them, they were stuck as ridiculous stock archetypes- “the sexy lady” or “the fat guy”. Also, one character’s trauma is related to silicone so he gets chased by a grotesque silicone boob monster rendered in weird CGI, no lie.
Top it all off with mediocre animation and this anime is astoundingly bad. I wouldn’t watch it unless you’re eager to see a train wreck. I'll watn that this anime features abuse a lot and there are several (really bizarre) sexist remarks.
Kumamiko: Girl Meets Bear (12 Episodes)
I tried to make it through three episodes of this anime, but couldn’t. Kumamiko is the story of a friendship between a young miko and a bear- it seems like a sort-of-cute fantastical slice-of-life with somewhat mediocre humor but what made it hard to watch for me was adult men sexually harassing a fourteen-year-old girl (who looks eight) being a running gag.
What made me have to stop watching was a “joke” midway through the third episode where the girl is talking to her bear friend while undressing only for her adult male relative to come in and try to talk to her too. She does the typical anime-girl reaction of freaking out and hitting him- to which he responds by literally pinning her into the floor while she’s in her underwear and screaming in her face “how come it’s okay for him and not me?” While this teenage girl is being pinned down in a state of undress by an adult man screaming about his right to see her like that, she is sobbing and terrified and hyperventilating, barely able to tell spit out the obvious “because he’s a bear and you’re NOT”.
I guess there must be someone on the planet who finds that funny, but it was so over the line and (intentionally?) reminisent of sexual assault that it creeped me out and I had to end the episode there. Apparently I didn’t miss much because even the author of the original manga was disappointed in how the anime ended.
Bungo Stray Dogs (12 Episodes, Second Season Confirmed)
I pretty much got bored and uncomfortable with this one after four episodes, which is a shame, because the premise of a sort of detective agency made up of superpowered characters based on famous writers is very cool. But the story itself, while decent, just didn’t grab me and the humor often felt forced and they characters were more like walking tropes.
There were also some tropes I’m truly sick of, like constant running gag of the sister who wants to have sex with her brother and female characters doing rape-y things to male characters as a joke. The latter joke was especially uncomfortable because this was a character based off a historical feminist who believed intensely in pacifism sexually assaulting someone for a gag. Not super respectful, to say the least.
If you’re okay with that stuff, you might find it to be a decent story though. It certainly has a nice aesthetic. I should also warn that there’s also a running gag with a character constantly attempting suicide (and he’s based off a real guy who killed himself after several failed attempts).
Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3 (13 Episodes)
Sailor Moon Crystal’s third season was an incredible improvement from season one and two of this reboot of the classic magical girl series. The animation went from being jaw-droppingly horrible to pretty great. The series also stayed faithful to the manga while adding in some fun character moments and sweet additional scenes. There were some really nice fight scenes too.
There were some things from the manga I wish could have been changed or left out- chiefly a part involving non-consensual kissing and a character cheating on her girlfriend in a way that’s never addressed- but this season wasn’t really worse than the manga, unlike the previous two seasons. I’m actually looking forward to Crystal’s adaptation of the manga’s fourth arc now.
Kiznaiver (12 Episodes)
Kiznaiver follows a group of teenagers who are the subjects of a weird experiment where they all share pain. This Studio Trigger anime wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t call it great either. The animation was very nice and there were some interesting themes about human connection and decent character arcs.
One girl had a (super over-the-top) tragic gay backstory and while it fell into a lot of cliched tropes (dead lesbians abounded) it was at least nice the anime didn’t treat her having had feelings for another girl as bad or weird. On the other hand, the anime was often a little nonsensical and verged into melodrama territory quite often.
There were lots of simply strange moments like one character who seemed like a decent person aggressively yelling he was going to “violate” this girl. Was he threatening to rape her? Where did that come from? Why didn’t anyone at least give him a weird look for that? That might have been a translation thing, though. There were a few other weird-out-of-nowhere moments that didn't gel with the rest of the story like that though.
Basically, Kiznaiver was a solid, watchable anime that had quite a few weak moments where the plot was a bit iffy and characters acted in ways that didn’t make sense.
Flying Witch (12 Episodes)
Flying Witch was a cute, relaxing slice-of-life anime about a witch-in-training moving to a new town. It was super chill, often fun and all of the characters were likeable. The series was often sweet and funny- Kumamiko could stand to learn a thing or two from it, as it managed to be fun without relying on over-the-top fanservice or sexual harassment "jokes".
I also really enjoyed the little bits of fantasy, witch lore and magic the series was peppered with. You should check out this series if you like slice-of-life, but if you dislike the slow pacing of that kind of anime, this series is not for you. The pacing and the characters are super laid back, so if you want to watch something super chill, it’s good for that.